


if you wanna leave then i'll be so lonely

by juggyjones



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, and he's here to stay, but zeke's here for her, raven has a fear of losing people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-05-24 17:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juggyjones/pseuds/juggyjones
Summary: Raven finds out that Zeke is going back to the Air Force and she can’t bear the thought of him leaving, too - not after he’s become to her everything her child’s father, Finn, couldn’t be.





	1. we're all surviving the best we can

**Author's Note:**

> it's a bit slow in the beginning, but it gets a lot better after one third. pinkie promise.

When Raven met Zeke, she was at a very bad place in her life. At twenty-four, she had a two-year-old to look after and a job at a car repair shop downtown where she worked with sexist pigs, and an ex-fiancee who knocked her up and bolted into the arms of another woman. 

Miles met him first. She lost him at the park and Zeke was the one who found him and brought it back to her, and took them for an ice-cream and lunch.

Miles adored him and Raven couldn’t say otherwise. He smiled brightly at them, tugged at Miles’s curls playfully, and he didn’t seem to have any ill intentions toward either of them.

Sometimes, Raven is surprised at the number of men who get off on young mothers with children, and she’s become wary of them over time.

There was nothing about Zeke that wasn’t genuine. When he offered them to get lunch again sometime, she accepted almost immediately.

Miles hugged him when they were leaving, and Zeke smiled, and when he looked at her, she could tell he was really hoping she’d call. That he’d see her again.

And really, she trusted Miles’s judgment. And was really lonely, and sad, and miserable, and longed to be able to have someone in her life who’d help her out because after Finn, her life consisted of work and Miles and having to take too many jobs to be able to pay the bills, and her social life was nonexistent.

Besides, Zeke didn’t seem to mind the fact she was a mother. If anything, he seemed to like that the two came in a package, and it wasn’t long before they were dating and he became more of a father to Miles than Finn ever was.

They moved in with him few months later, because Raven loved him and he loved her and even though they were young and probably rushing into things, she trusted him more than she ever trusted Finn and that was all she needed.

He knew her story. Only child, doesn’t know her father, raised herself because of a deadbeat mother, and didn’t go to college because her grades weren’t good enough since she spent most of her time working three jobs to pay for the bills and her mother’s debts. At eighteen, she started dating her childhood best friend and at twenty he proposed and at twenty-one she got pregnant with Miles, and he had to go to California for several months, and when she gave him a surprise visit, she found another woman in his bed.

She knew his story. Born and raised in Brooklyn, studied programming at MIT before deciding to be a pilot in the Air Force. Big, beautiful family of all intelligent and loving people, with a mother who died few days before they met, of breast cancer. One long-term girlfriend, but he didn’t want to continue the relationship while serving the country, and he came back from Afghanistan two months before they met.

After a year of living together, Raven feels like she can finally breathe again. She’s twenty-six with a four-year-old who treats the man he lives with as his dad, and Zeke treats Miles as a son. Miles has taken after Raven’s Hispanic complexion and has her curls, so when his old friends see him with Miles, nobody thinks he isn’t his.

In addition to that, Raven left her job at the mechanic and is studying part-time for a degree in the mechanics, even though she’s better than all her peers. She got a job at a prestigious car company and she’s met Monty there, who introduced her to Harper and Jasper and Miller and Jackson, all the people who are now a part of her and Zeke’s friendship group.

For the first time since she found out she was pregnant with Miles—or maybe first time ever, really—she’s truly, infinitely happy.

That’s why it hurts so much to confront him about the letter from the military.

And that’s why she confronts him about it while Miles is at Harper and Monty’s kid’s birthday sleepover, and she and Zeke have some time to themselves. They took a Harley to Brighton Beach and when Zeke left to get them ice-cream, Raven sat on the sand.

Right now, she feels heavy. It’s not the kind of sadness she’s used to, because she isn’t particularly _sad._ She lost the capacity to be sad when Finn ruined her and she promised herself she’d become stronger, never let anyone do that to her again.

It feels like walking for a long time, when your feet hurt and you know that walking doesn’t ease the pain, but you have a place you need to go to and sometimes your feet hurt.

Sometimes you ache, with a blank stare, trying to figure out the whirlpool of emotions inside you. To figure out where you are at this moment, at this place, with this person, and who you are in midst of all that. Sometimes, it’s acceptance that hurts more than the realization of impending loss.

Maybe it takes Zeke a long time to get the ice-cream, maybe every moment she spends agonizing over the future lasts a short eternity.

Raven runs her fingers through the sand. It’s brittle and warm, and she feels the dying sun on her face and can’t help but feel a different kind of heaviness weighing her down.

She doesn’t feel like crying. It feels too deep to be so shallow, it feels like a house ripped away from her and her roots snatched from the ground and she’s floating, and her body aches, and she feels it too deep to be able to cry.

Zeke planned it as a romantic getaway. Something they haven’t had in a long time, and as much as they love spending time with Miles, it’s beautiful to have moments like these.

Just the two of them.

And a letter from the military.

When Zeke comes, she can’t even bring herself to smile, or look at him. He tells her about the line he had to stand in, and stupid kids, and she hears the adoration in his voice he has every time he talks about kids. She knows he wants one of his own, one to be a brother or a sister to Miles.

He notices, almost right away. 

“What’s wrong?”

 _‘Nothing,’_ Raven wants to say, but it’s a lie too heavy. Her eyes are burning and so is her throat, but there are no tears threatening to fall.

She stares at the sun that’s turning orange. There’s people around them, kids playing, some even swimming, but it feels like they’re somewhere else. She can barely perceive what’s happening to her.

“I love you,” she says.

It’s not the first time she says it and it’s not unusual, but she’s certain he notices the way her voice cracks at the end of the statement. How she doesn’t look at him, how gravely her voice is. Maybe he even notices her fingers shaking, even if they’re buried in the sand or holding the cone.

“I love you, too.” He moves some hair out of her face. “What is going on, Raven?”

“I found your letter,” she says. “From the Air Force.”

She looks at him. He holds her gaze, for a second or two, before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and focusing on something behind her, anything but her.

“I was going to tell you.”

“When? You’re leaving in two weeks.”

Zeke opens his mouth, parts his lips in a way he does before he gives an excuse, but gives up and looks at the ocean instead.

There are still no tears threatening to fall, but Raven feels as if someone’s choking her.

She should’ve known when McCreary came over, and Zeke couldn’t fall asleep that night. When he was grumpy—and Zeke is _never_ grumpy, not with her or Miles—and when he was quiet, and it was months ago.

She should’ve known he would want back in.

There are many reasons why Raven loves him and his hero-complex that he so vehemently denies is larger than most of them.

“You want to be the hero,” she states.

He doesn’t deny it this time.

She smiles, still. “You already are one. You’re Miles’s hero.”

“I know. And it’s more than I deserve. Sometimes it’s too much to bear, to know that this little, beautiful kid sees me as his hero when there’s so many better people than me out there.” Before Raven can protest, he continues, “It’s easier when you’re fighting a war for someone else, when you’re a hero without a name. Just a number.”

“You’re not just a number.”

“I am, Rae.” He brings a finger to her lips and brushes over them, glancing at her as if in fear of what happens next. “But McCreary and Diyoza and my team, they need me.”

“I need you.”

“You don’t,” he says. “You’re perfectly capable of living your life on your own.”

“I was giving up when I met you.”

“You were never going to give up. Finn fucked you up and ruined your self-confidence and shit, but you’re a great mother and a woman because you had to raise Miles on your own and he’s the best kid I’ve ever known.”

“He says that because he’s yours.”

Zeke smiles. “I wish he was, but he isn’t. But if I ever have kids, God, I want them to be raised by you. I want them to be kind and sassy and confident and stubborn just like Miles. Just like you.”

“Then why leave?”

This time, he doesn’t answer right away. He drops his hand from her face and puts it on his lap, and Raven resists the urge to hold it. To ask him to promise that everything’s going to be okay, that he won’t leave.

She knows better. She knows he can’t promise her that, because his team is as much family to him as she is.

Instead, she watches the sun. It’s closer to the ocean and it’ll start to set soon, and she wishes she could embrace the sight as much as she should. Without knowing he’s going to leave, too.

“Is there something wrong with me?” Her voice is quiet, almost inaudible, and she can’t look at him when she asks it. “Is that why everyone leaves? I become too much? Do I say stupid shit? Is there something I—”

She doesn’t realize she’s crying or that Zeke is holding her until she runs out of breath and she’s shaking in his arms, barely even feeling the warmth of his body. He smells like the garage, like his Harley, like the mint that’s planted all around their apartment because Miles loves it. He smells like home.

Raven doesn’t want to imagine a home without him.

His hands pull her closer when she starts sobbing, and she’s in his lap and he runs hands through her hair. She doesn’t even have the energy to hug him back, to wrap her hands around him and never let him go.

She doesn’t want him to go.

She doesn’t want to be left alone again.

She doesn’t want this.

He kisses the top of her head and she feels tears in her hair, too.

“You are perfect,” he whispers. His voice is hoarse and he’s about to break down, struggling to get the words out, but does it anyway. “You are kind and brave and intelligent and you don’t deserve any of the shit you’ve been through. You deserve to be treated right and I feel like I can’t do that, not yet. You’re a woman who knows what she wants and I feel like I’m not mature enough to be with you. Like I don’t deserve you.”

Raven parts her lips and tries to say something, but can’t. There’s nothing she can say that could convey the weight of the emotion she’s feeling right now.

Zeke pulls her even closer.

“This is my last time, but I need this. I need to sort my head through. It’s just six months, and then I’m done with it. But I want to figure out who I am before I can be the man you deserve.”

“I already deserve you,” she whispers.

“No,” he says. “Raven, you and Miles are the best thing that’s happened to me. And I want to have kids with you, more than we can handle. And I want to take you to my stupidly big family celebrations, and I want to let Miles take my name, and I want to marry you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“But you’re leaving.”

“Yes. But I’m leaving so I could come back a better man.”

“War doesn’t make heroes,” she says. “It ruins them.”

Zeke pulls her back, cupping both her cheeks, and makes her look at him. She hates the sight – he looks just as broken as she feels. Red eyes, skin swollen underneath them, and trembling lips, blushing cheeks. He looks like a mess, but it’s the mess she loves and can’t bear to lose.

“Listen,” he says. “I owe my team this much. And I’m not leaving. I’ll never leave you. I’ll write to you, I’ll call when I’ll be able to, and I’m not going to be another person who left you on your own because I’d rather die.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m serious.”

She can’t bear the thought of him dying. “Please, don’t say that.”

“Look at me. Rae, please. I love you, okay? You may not understand, but this is something I need to do. And when I come back, I’ll marry you.”

“What if I say no?”

“You’ll be too happy to see me to say no,” he says. He looks at her for a moment and realizes it was an attempt to make a joke, and his lips spread into the tiniest of smiles – but genuine. “I’m serious. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“But you didn’t tell me about this.”

“I’m sorry. It was shitty of me, but I didn’t know how to. I was going to do it today, and explain everything.”

“And propose to me?”

“No,” he admits, “that wasn’t a part of the plan. But I’ve been meaning to do it since the moment I realized you were Miles’s mother, because he was the best kid I’ve ever met and I thought he must have the best mother ever, and when I saw you looking stunning even though you looked like you were about to fall apart, I knew I was going to marry you someday.”

She smiles. Barely.

He’s leaving, but he’s not _leaving._ And he’s making a promise that he’ll come back.

“When you come back,” she says, “I promise I’ll say yes.”

When he kisses her, lips wet and salty with tears of goodbye, she knows she means what she said.

He’s not her dad, or her mom, or Finn.

He’s Zeke. And he’s never going to leave her.


	2. the promises we keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   For the first three months, they are a perfect little family. 
> 
>   Again, it begins with a letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a long time since the first chapter, but someone requested a continuation and i only just finished working on it. hope it's good.

  THE PROMISES WE KEEP

  Sitting on the floor of Clarke Griffin-Blake’s living room, watching Miles and Aurora play with toys and swords and cars, Raven wonders how has her life come to this.

  When Zeke went to the Air Force, she had a horrible time without him. Miles missed him, she missed him, too, and the six months was more excruciating than the years between leaving Finn and finding Zeke. With Finn, she never knew what a good, healthy and loving relationship meant, and once she discovered that with Zeke, being without that hurt so much more.

  But Raven and Miles got through it. She met Clarke, who was Miller’s doctor when he got shot during a robbery, and had a little girl Miles’s age. She introduced Clarke and her husband, Bellamy, to her friends, and everyone seemed to click, even if the two were couple of years older than everyone else. They met Octavia and Lincoln through Bellamy, and Miller knew Roan and Echo from work, and somehow they ended up being more of a massive friendship group than just a few people hanging out.

  Even more, if you include the kids.

  Because of this, Raven wasn’t alone like the last time. She and Clarke got along better than anyone else she knows, and it helped to have someone who doesn’t pretend she can understand what Raven’s going through.

  But Clarke understood loss – she understood the fear of never seeing someone again, and she understood the nights when Raven would wake up, expecting a visit from the military to tell her Zeke didn’t make it.

  “Raven.”

  Clarke sits down and places two small glasses on the table, filled with something that definitely wasn’t coffee. Her face is part amused, part worried, but wholly determined.

  “What’s this?”

  “Liquid courage,” Clarke says. “Zeke’s coming back in two weeks. I figured you could use some.”

  Raven smiles, hardly believing what she sees and hears. She’s far from surprised, though – her best friend knows how to deal with any sort of problem.

  She takes the glass in her hand and Clarke does the same, until they bring them together.

  “To our kids?” Raven tries.

  “And our men.”

  “Cheers.” She takes a sip and is startled by the bitter taste, coughing a little. “I thought there’s a wine mom and a vodka aunt.”

  Clarke laughs and downs her shot of vodka, hardly flinching. “Everyone’s secretly a vodka person.”

  “Cheers to that,” Raven says, and finishes her shot.

  The next two week pass by just like the previous five and a half months – awfully, dreadfully _slowly_. Raven spends it with Clarke, or her friends, and even Miles is sensing something big is about to come. He knows Zeke’s coming back, she’s told him as much, but it’s not the same as for her.

  For Raven, nobody has ever come back. Zeke promised he would and despite everything in her screaming against it, she believed him.

  Longer than three weeks – that’s how long it’s been since she last heard from him. Still, she doesn’t let herself give that any importance. His side of the bed is empty, but she lets herself think come tomorrow, it won’t be. She closes her eyes and pictures him lying there, eyes closed as he sleeps – finally with her, finally _at peace._

  He bid his goodbyes. Now, it’s time for him to come back to her.

  “Tomorrow,” she whispers. Her hand travels to the other half of the bed, feeling how cold it is. “Tomorrow, you come back.”

  Only, he doesn’t. He comes back two days later and surprises her at work, pulling her into the tightest hug she’s ever been in. He smells like sweat and metal and planes, but when he kisses her, all she can taste is _Zeke_. Her hands are wrapped around him and his are around her, and she doesn’t even care that her customers are waiting and complaining.

  When they part, he kisses her, softly. His lips are warm and there is a week’s worth of stubble on his jaw and she loves him, _oh God how she loves him—_

Their foreheads are leaning against each other; everything is quiet. She can hear some birds, outside, and kids laughing while waiting for their parents to pick them up at the nearby kindergarten, but it all blends together. Around her, the only sounds are their heartbeats.

  “You came back,” she whispers. “You came back.”

  Zeke pulls her closer, wiping the tears on her face while ignoring his own. “I gave you a promise.”

  She laughs; god, she _laughs._ It feels as if she hasn’t done that since she found out that he’s really leaving. “Yes, you did.”

  He lets go of her, and she’s wondering what he’s doing – when he gets down on one knee and she remembers the second part of his promise.

  The way he looks at her – she was never everything in someone’s eyes. But for Zeke, there’s so much adoration shamelessly displayed all over his face that breath hitches in her throat. He looks at her as if he didn’t think he would see her again, as if he’s seeing her for the first time, as if he’s trying to savour every moment and map every single tiny freckle on her.

  From the pocket on his jacket, he pulls out a tiny box and opens it.

  “Oh my god,” she says.

  “Raven.”

  “That’s a _ring_.”

  “Will you—”

  “YES! Yes, _yes_ , a thousand times yes!”

  She leaps into his arms and doesn’t even think about the ring. She’s ehre, with the man she loves, and he loves her back enough to tell her he wants to spend the rest of his life with her and prove it. When you have that, who gives a shit about a tiny piece of metal on your finger?

  The marriage is supposed to take place about a year later, at first, but when they’re six months back to normal and Raven’s pregnancy test comes back positive, there’s only one thing they can do. They get married when she’s six months pregnant and it’s a ceremony with their friends and Zeke’s massive family. No one comes for Raven, but it’s fine – everyone who matters is here, anyway.

  Little Henry is born about a week early, into a family of three and about several dozen other people he could call parents and a bunch of siblings by circumstance. Aurora, Jordan, and Miles adore the little boy, and so does Octavia’s little girl, bare months older than him.

  Still, no one adores him more than his father. Zeke holds him when he’s crying, when he’s happy, when he’s hungry or tired or scared – he doesn’t let go of Henry.

  For the first three months, they are a perfect little family.

  Again, it begins with a letter.

  It arrives before he’s home from a visit to the Blakes with the kids, so she faces it alone. She doesn’t open the envelope. Still, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what a letter to Lieutenant Ezekiel Shaw from Colonel Charmaine Diyoza could say.

  Raven leaves it on the counter. When he comes home, he sees it and looks at her.

  She looks away. “We’ll talk about it when the kids are asleep.”

  And so they do. It’s late at night, both Miles and Henry sound asleep, the best they can be. Both young parents are trying to catch a breath from dealing with the children, in the comfort of their own bed, but to Raven it feels like a hostile environment.

  The memory of his side of the bed being empty is still fresh. She couldn’t bear to have it empty again.

  “I didn’t know,” he begins. “When I left, I told her I’m done.”

  “Obviously she didn’t get the memo.”

  “She did. It’s just…” His hand finds her and he takes it, softly as he can. She fights the urge to take it out. “She says I’m one of her best. That she could really use my help mediating the team.”

  “What, is McCreary not enough?”

  Zeke chuckles. It’s a dry laugh, one that pains her more than silence. “You know him better than to say that.”

  “I thought I knew you, too.”

  “Raven.” He says her name softly, as if he’s begging. He tugs at her hand, just a little bit, until she looks at him. “I’m not going.”

  “She needs you. She needed you the last time, too.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  Raven wants to bite back the words. She bites on her lips, not wanting to say it, but she does. “This time.”

  And it hurts.

  His thumb stops massaging her palm and he gulps, staring at her wordlessly. “Please tell me you don’t believe that.”

  Looking at him hurts. She can’t deny it.

  “Raven, for the love of God, I—I love you. I gave you a promise that I’m _not_ leaving and I’m intent on keeping it. One letter from—”

  “Zeke, _I don’t blame you._ ” The words hurt because she means it. “I can’t blame you for doing what you believe is right and for fighting for it.”

  “No, Raven, _look at me_. You’ve got this the wrong way around. I’m fighting for _us_. I don’t want—” He pinches the bridge of his nose, that much she can see frmo the corner of her eyes. “Fuck wars. I belong here, not in the battlefield. I needed to go the last tour because that’s what I needed to confirm for myself. I needed to make sure I wasn’t just running away, being with you. I needed to know that’s what’s right for me.”

  He holds her hand and does the same thing as before. When she looks at him, his cheeks are glistening and his eyes are red. “I love you. And I chose you, and I’d do it over and over again.”

  Raven stays quiet.

  “Rae, I have you. I have Henry and I have Miles. I have all of our friends. I have our little place, I have our own little lives. When I’m here, the battlefield disappears. When I’m on the battlefield, none of this disappears. I know my priorities. I do. And right now, and for the rest of my life, my priority is staying with you. With my family.”

  One tear escapes and rolls down her cheek. She still can’t look at him.

  “I don’t need to be a hero to someone who doesn’t care about me more than just a number. I’ve done my part. Now, I have two little boys who look at me and I see how much they try to be like me. I have two little boys who need me to be their hero, one that they can see. They’re more important than a nation. I couldn’t leave them, and I couldn’t leave you, either.”

  She finally looks at him. His face is broken and genuine, and eyes stretched wide in fear that she doesn’t understand what he’s telling her – that she still thinks he’s going to leave.

  Her lips tremble. “I can’t lose you again.”

  Zeke exhales, eyes fluttering as he closes them for a second or two. He then wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, her head against his chest. “No,” he says. “I’m here. You’re stuck with me.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise. And I’ll promise you every day, if that’s what it takes.”

  “I love you,” Raven whispers.

  He runs a hand through her hair and something wet drips on the top of it. “I love you too, Rae, and God help me, I’ll love you for the rest of my life. No war is going to take you away from me.”

  “I know,” she says, because she does.

  She believes him.

  He kisses the top of her head. “No warrior on the field compares to you. There’s no one I look up to more than you. You’re—” He stumbles over his words. “You’re all I could ever ask for.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  She gulps. “Yes.”

  And she does, for the rest of their lives. She trusts him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this, leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed! as always, you can send in a prompt to me on tumblr, @bellarkesgodson.


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